


The Card Box

by lavenderfleetwood



Series: Eventualities [2]
Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 22:09:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16416911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderfleetwood/pseuds/lavenderfleetwood
Summary: Bingley was standing in his front hall when his life changed.





	The Card Box

It was an ordinary Tuesday morning. A business acquaintance had stopped by while Bingley was out the previous day, but without the calling card he had no idea how to properly spell the man’s Gaelic family name for an invitation to dinner.

Bingley knew exactly where the card must be, so he took the initiative to find it rather than bother his footman.

Caroline and Louisa enjoyed entertaining, thus the card box, stowed in a small ornate table by the front entrance, was nearly overflowing. Bingley flipped through the cards, annoyed that his acquaintance’s card was not on top--he had only called yesterday!

Bingley stopped.

He held his breath.

There, on a card embellished with delicate roses, was the name of a woman he had hoped to one day call his beloved. He raised the card with a shaking hand, searching for a whiff of her light perfume, but it only smelled of ink and paper and dust. Nothing at all like his Jane.

Oh--Sweet Jane.

Bingley hailed his butler immediately.

“This card--the woman who left it--when did she call?”

The butler did not normally take care to remember each and every one of the Bingley sisters’ steady stream of callers, but this was a exceptionally pleasant (and beautiful) woman. The butler recollected her immediately.

“She called a few months ago, in January I believe. Your sisters intercepted her as they returned from shopping, but the lady forgot to collect her card. They entertained her for tea and she left soon after.”

“Miss Bennet, she was here?” He asked faintly, turning to leave before the butler could answer his master’s rhetorical question.

Bingley could not remember ever being filled with such anger. His pulse pounded in his ears, his face grew hot, his fists clenched and unclenched, his boots stomped their way into his sisters’ sitting room.

“Explain this.” He growled through clenched teeth, after slamming the small slip of paper on the table between their overstuffed chairs.

“Charles!” Louisa chidded, astonished at his rage. She turned to look at the paper and immediately paled. “Oh--” She turned to Caroline for support, but her sister had jumped out of her chair and was facing the fire.

“Hmph.” Caroline crossed her arms and turned to look at her brother, a petulant pout on her lips. “I don’t know why you’re so angry, Charles.”

Her brother studied her face, his anger growing. “You do.” He said, so infuriated he was beyond yelling. His voice was steady. For the first time in months, he felt steady. He felt right.

“I loved-- _love_ her.” Caroline’s pout dropped, startled out of her childishness by the sincerity in his voice. “I love her, and you--so blinded by your prejudice--have left me to languish in my misery! To languish without her!” Perhaps he was not past the yelling quite yet.

“Charles.” Hurst had risen from his prone position on the sofa closest to the fire and placed a calming hand on his arm. Bingley jerked his arm out of Hurst’s grip, but regretted it immediately. The ferocity of his own action startled him, as well as everyone else in the room.

“Caroline, Louisa--leave.” Hurst said shortly. Caroline fled without a backwards glance, but Louisa lingered, a handkerchief, damp with tears, clenched in her hand.

“I’m so sorry, Charles. If I had known-- We had thought it was just--” She choked off a quiet sob and followed her sister out of the room, leaving Hurst and Bingley alone.

The silence was deafening.

“They are foolish women,” Hurst sighed. “No, that’s not quite right. They are foolish _together_. The Louisa I married when Caroline was still off at finishing school was much more… sensible.”

“What am I to do?” Charles felt like crying, or yelling, or running. He didn’t know how to fix this. Any of this.

“About your sisters? Nothing. I will take them to visit my family in the North for the Easter holiday. I have many cousins suitable for Caroline to marry. If she refuses to choose, or does not receive any offers, I will have paperwork drawn up for her to begin living on her own--at your approval of course.”

Bingley nodded, numb to the situation.

“About Miss Bennet, that is more difficult. Do you truly love her?” Hurst asked, the bluntness of the question shocking Bingley out of his own thoughts.

“I love her.”

“Then you must go back to her right now and grovel for all you’re worth.”

**Author's Note:**

> I always felt like Caroline was the malicious little sister who took her bitterness out on Jane and didn't care that Bingley was hurt too. Whereas Louisa, though she's barely in the book, would have gone along with that plan for more protective older sister reasons and would have heartily regretted it once she saw how in love the two actually were.


End file.
